Thin butt needle for knitting machines



Dec. 8, 1964 M. PHILIP THIN BUTT NEEDLE FOR KNITTING MACHINES Filed April 17. 1962 FIG] FIGB

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United States Patent O THIN BUTT NEEDLE FOR KNITI'HNG MACHINES This invention relates to circular knitting machines, and more particularly to those employing a pattern or design Wheel at each feed, or at most of the feeds. It is particularly adaptable to a machine such as disclosed in my co-pending application, Serial No. 721,730, iiled March l7, 1958, now United States Letters Patent No. 3,075,372.

Machines prior to the one disclosed in said co-pending application had slots on the pattern wheel spaced such that as the pattern wheel turned relative to the array of needles, each succeeding slot would engage the next needle. i

An essential feature of the improvement in the preferred embodiment of said co-pending application is that there are one or more idle slots present between each slot engaged with a needle butt. In one variation shown, .as many as six idle slots may be present between two that are engaged with needle butts.

As explained in said co-pending application, the effect of this arrangement, together With other distinctive features of the invention of that application, is to permit the same needles to cooperate on successive revolutions of the machine with slots on the pattern wheel idle during the prior revolution.

One characteristic of such multiple slots is that they are more closely spaced than on the conventional machines of the same needle spacing.

Each pattern wheel slot, Whether of usual construction or made according to said co-pending application, must be slightly wider than the needle butt vn'th which it cooperates to provide working clearance. On conventional machines the needles, including the butts, are of uniform thickness. With such conventional needles on fine gage machines the thickness of the needle and butt necessarily occupies a large proportion of the distance between needles, and since the pattern wheel slot width must slightly exceed the butt thicknses to mesh, it becomes increasingly diiiicult to provide a plurality of slots per needle on machines using the conventional needle as the gage becomes iiner. Increasing the distance between needles clearly is no solution since this merely coarsens the gage of the cloth knitted. Nor may the overall needle thickness be lessened without unacceptable weakening.

It is, accordingly, the object of this invention to provide an improved needle construction to coact with the narrower slots required for pattern wheels with a multiple of slots per needle distance.

Another object is to permit a larger number of slots, for example, in excess of three, the needle on machines of coarser gages constructed as disclosed in my said copending application.

Still another object is to make it possible for a machine disclosed in my co-pending application to be successfully constructed for the finer gages.

In its broadest aspect my invention consists in providing a needle with a butt thinner than its shaft for cooperating with a pattern wheel slot which is narrower than the needle shaft thickness.

Preferably, however, such needle butts are not indiscriminately thinned merely to cooperate with the narrower slots. The conventional butt is as thin as the shaft of thel needle and must transmit substantial driving forces from the cams to the rest of the needle at times to move it through the knitting cycle. Indeed, many suggested improvements in needle structure have been directed toward thickening, not thinning, the butt to absorb these heavy strains and increase the life of the needle. During cooperation withv the pattern wheel, however, the needle is not engaged in knitting and the force transmitted by a pattern wheel jack to a needle butt to raise a needle is relatively small.

Hence, in a narrower aspect, my inventionv comprises providing a needle with a butt selectively thinned towards its tip for cooperating with a pattern Wheel slot which is narrower than the needle shaft thickness but is kept selectively thicker for needed strength at its root..

The invention will be further described in connection' with the accompanying drawings, in which, for simplicity, the portions of the-needle cylinder of the machine shown are drawn as if of a cylinder of innite radius. In these drawings:

FIG. 1 is an elevation of a latch needle embodying the invention; v

FIG. 2 is a cross section in plan taken on the line 2--2 of FIG. 1;

FIG. 3 is a sectional View on an enlarged scale corresponding to- FIG. 2 showing an alternate form of the invention;

FIG. 4 is another sectional view on an enlarged scale corresponding to FIG. 2 showing a further alternate form of the invention;

FIG. 5 is a plan View, partially in section, of the cooperating portions of a pattern wheel and needle cylinder employing the needles of FIG. 2; and

. FIG. 6 is an enlarged perspective view of a portion of the edge of a pattern wheel.

In FIG. l is a needle'generally designated 1, of conventional profile in elevation, but with the improvement of this invention embodied in the butt generally designated 2.

This improvement is more clearly seen, in a simple form, in FIG. 2. The section 2 2 is taken just above the top surface of the butt as seen in FIG. l. At the right, the needle shaft 3 appears in section. In the center of FIG. 2, the base portion 4 of the butt 2 is seen to be uniformly of the same thickness as the needle shaft. Extending to the left of FIG. 2, appears a thinned tip 5 of the butt 2 which cooperates with the slots of the pattern wheel. In the simple form shown in FIG. 2 this thinned tip is of uniform thickness and has one side coplanar with the needle shaft side.

FIG. 3 is a section, of an improved variation of the invention also taken at 2 2 just above the top surface of the needle butt. The shaft 3 is the same as in FIG. 2. In the center is the base portion 4a of the butt 2. On the left is the thinned tip 5a. In the view shown the upper sides of the base portion 4a and the tip 5a is coplanar with the upper side of the shaft 3. The lower sides of the tip 5a and base portion 4a are on a diagonal. The lower side of the base portion 4a connects the lower side of the shaft 3 with the Vlower side of the tip 5a. The lower side of the tip 5a is also on a slight diagonal resulting in the end of the tip 5a being slightly thinner than the portion adjoining the base section 4a.

FIG. 4 shows a further variation. It also is a section taken on 2-2 of FIG. l just above the top surface of the butt. On the leftis the shaft 3 similar to the two previous views. In the center is a base portion 4b of the butt 2 and on the left is the thinned tip 5b. Both portions of the butt 2 are thinned symmetrically about the center line of the needle and butt shown in FIG. Y4. The sides of the base portion are sharply converging from the sides of the shaft 3 to the thinned tip 5b. The sides of the thin tip are slightly converging from the tion 4b to the end of the tip.

Operation of a needle accordingY to the invention is shown in FIG.V 5. At the top Vis a patternwheel 6 with;

base por-` equally spaced blades 7 forming the slots. Holding the blades in correctly spaced alignment are short jacks S and long jacks 9. Below and tothe left of the pattern wheel is the needle raising cam 10 'and facing the pattern Wheel is Vthe needle cylinder 11 containing a series ofneedles 12-19 constructed according to the invention in the simple form shown in FIG. 2. Exceptl for the needle strueture, the arrangement of parts shown in FIG. 3 has been already disclosed in my co-peuding application already mentioned.

FIG. 6 is an enlarged view of the pattern wheel appearing in FIG. 5 to show its construction. Protruding from the pattern Wheel 6 are the blades 7 which formthe slots which engagethe needle butts. Between the blades are the jacks 8 and 9, which hold the blades in the proper alignment. At the left, partially obscured, is a short jack 8.- Visible in other slots are long jacks 9.V The precise pattern of long andV short jacks is changedin accordance with the knitting pattern to be produced. The jacks do not ll the top portions of the slots. This allows each needle butt to engage the blades and drive the pattern wheel in the slots having long jacks as Well as in the ones with the short jacks. The long jacks 9 shownhere extend beyond the end of the,` blades, an optional feature. The method by which the pattern wheel raises certain of the needles is conventional and forms no part of this invention. In FIG. 5, the pattern Was preselected to raise every second needle. Needles 12, 14, i6 and 18 Will be raised since their butts cooperate with slots with long jacks 9 which prevent the'needle butt slidingthrough the slot after leaving the support of the cam 10. In this 4 drawing, needles 17 and 19 will have passed through their cooperating slot and remain at cam level.

The butt of needle 16, however, is engaged by and heing raised by a jack 9 until it separates from the pattern wheel at a higher level Where, like needle 18, it may be engaged by another cam (not shown for clarity) and continued through the knitting cycle.

A thick base portion 4 of the needle butt 2 is preferably provided to engage the needle raising carn 10 and prevent undue stress on the thin tip 5. The thick portion will in like `manner engage the other cams which impose a heavier load on the butt and needle during the successive phases of theknitting cycle. In these other phases, it may be important to have a strong butt because a uniformly thinned butt which would cooperate satisfactorily with the multiple slot pattern Wheel might not take the stress imposed by the cams.

I claim:

"In a needle for use in a circular knitting machine which has both knitting cams and needle raising pattern Wheels kthe Aimprovement comprising a needle butt whose base is substantially the same thickness as the needle shaft and is designed to engage said knitting cams and an extremity of said needle butt which is selectively thinned tobe engaged by said needle raising pattern wheels. 

